Tales of Terror and Mystery
brown leather Gladstone bag. His companion was a lady, tall and erect,
walking with a vigorous step which outpaced the gentleman beside her.
She wore a long, fawn-coloured dust-cloak, a black, close-fitting
toque, and a dark veil which concealed the greater part of her face.
The two might very well have passed as father and daughter. They
walked swiftly down the line of carriages, glancing in at the windows,
until the guard, John Palmer, overtook them.
"Now then, sir, look sharp, the train is going," said he.
"First-class," the man answered.
The guard turned the handle of the nearest door. In the carriage which
he had opened, there sat a small man with a cigar in his mouth. His
appearance seems to have impressed itself upon the guard's memory, for
he was prepared, afterwards, to describe or to identify him. He was a
man of thirty-four or thirty-five years of age, dressed in some grey
material, sharp-nosed, alert, with a ruddy, weather-beaten face, and a
small, closely cropped, black beard. He glanced up as the door was
opened. The tall man paused with his foot upon the step.
"This is a smoking compartment. The lady dislikes smoke," said he,
looking round at the guard.
"All right! Here you are, sir!" said John Palmer. He slammed the door
of the smoking carriage, opened that of the next one, which was empty,
and thrust the two travellers in. At the same moment he sounded his
whistle and the wheels of the train began to move. The man with the
cigar was at the window of his carriage, and said something to the
guard as he rolled past him, but the words were lost in the bustle of
the departure. Palmer stepped into the guard's van, as it came up to
him, and thought no more of the incident.
Twelve minutes after its departure the train reached Willesden
Junction, where it stopped for a very short interval. An examination
of the tickets has made it certain that no one either joined or left it
at this time, and no passenger was seen to alight upon the platform.
At 5:14 the journey to Manchester was resumed, and Rugby was reached at
6:50, the express being five minutes late.
At Rugby the attention of the station officials was drawn to the fact
that the door of one of the first-class carriages was open. An
examination of that compartment, and of its neighbour, disclosed a
remarkable state of affairs.
The smoking carriage in which the short, red-faced man with the black
beard had been seen was now empty. Save for a half-smoked cigar, there
was no trace whatever of its recent occupant. The door of this
carriage was fastened. In the next compartment, to which attention had
been originally drawn, there was no sign either of the gentleman with
the astrakhan collar or of the young lady who accompanied him. All
three passengers had disappeared. On the other hand, there was found
upon the floor of this carriage--the one in which the tall traveller
and the lady had been--a young man fashionably dressed and of elegant
appearance. He lay with his knees drawn up, and his head resting
against the farther door, an elbow upon either seat. A bullet had
penetrated his heart and his death must have been instantaneous. No
one had seen such a man enter the train, and no railway ticket was
found in his pocket, neither were there any markings upon his linen,
nor papers nor personal property which might help to identify him. Who
he was, whence he had come, and how he had met his end were each as
great a mystery as what had occurred to the three people who had
started an hour and a half before from Willesden in those two
compartments.
I have said that there was no personal property which might help to
identify him, but it is true that there was one peculiarity about this
unknown young man which was much commented upon at the time. In his
pockets were found no fewer than six valuable gold watches, three in
the various pockets of his waist-coat, one in his ticket-pocket, one in
his breast-pocket, and one small one set in a leather strap and
fastened round his left wrist. The obvious explanation that the man
was a pickpocket, and that this was his plunder, was discounted by the
fact that all six were of American make and of a type which is rare in
England. Three of them bore the mark of the Rochester Watchmaking
Company; one was by Mason, of Elmira; one was unmarked; and the small
one, which was highly jewelled and ornamented, was from Tiffany, of New
York. The other contents of his pocket consisted of an ivory knife
with a corkscrew by Rodgers, of Sheffield; a small, circular mirror,
one inch in diameter; a readmission slip to the Lyceum Theatre; a
silver box full of vesta matches, and a brown leather cigar-case
containing two cheroots--also two pounds fourteen shillings in money.
It was clear, then, that whatever motives may have led to his death,
robbery was not among them. As already mentioned, there were no
markings upon the man's linen, which appeared to be new, and no
tailor's name upon his coat. In appearance he was young, short,
smooth-cheeked, and delicately featured. One of his front teeth was
conspicuously stopped with gold.
On the discovery of the tragedy an examination was instantly made of
the tickets of all passengers, and the number of the passengers
themselves was counted. It was found that only three tickets were
unaccounted for, corresponding to the three travellers who were
missing. The express was then allowed to proceed, but a new guard was
sent with it, and John Palmer was detained as a witness at Rugby. The
carriage which included the two compartments in question was uncoupled
and side-tracked. Then, on the arrival of Inspector Vane, of Scotland
Yard, and of Mr. Henderson, a detective in the service of the railway
company, an exhaustive inquiry was made into all the circumstances.
That crime had been committed was certain. The bullet, which appeared
to have come from a small pistol or revolver, had been fired from some
little distance, as there was no scorching of the clothes. No weapon
was found in the compartment (which finally disposed of the theory of
suicide), nor was there any sign of the brown leather bag which the
guard had seen in the hand of the tall gentleman. A lady's parasol was
found upon the rack, but no other trace was to be seen of the
travellers in either of the sections. Apart from the crime, the
question of how or why three passengers (one of them a lady) could get
out of the train, and one other get in during the unbroken run between
Willesden and Rugby, was one which excited the utmost curiosity among
the general public, and gave rise to much speculation in the London
Press.
John Palmer, the guard was able at the inquest to give some evidence
which threw a little light upon the matter. There was a spot between
Tring and Cheddington, according to his statement, where, on account of
some repairs to the line, the train had for a few minutes slowed down
to a pace not exceeding eight or ten miles an hour. At that place it
might be possible for a man, or even for an exceptionally active woman,
to have left the train without serious injury. It was true that a gang
of platelayers was there, and that they had seen nothing, but it was
their custom to stand in the middle between the metals, and the open
carriage door was upon the far side, so that it was conceivable that
someone might have alighted unseen, as the darkness would by that time
be drawing in. A steep embankment would instantly screen anyone who
sprang out from the observation of the navvies.
The guard also deposed that there was a good deal of movement upon the
platform at Willesden Junction, and that though it was certain that no
one had either joined or left the train there, it was still quite
possible that some of the passengers might have changed unseen from one
compartment to another. It was by no means uncommon for a gentleman to
finish his cigar in a smoking carriage and then to change to a clearer
atmosphere. Supposing that the man with the black beard had done so at
Willesden (and the half-smoked cigar upon the floor seemed to favour
the supposition), he would naturally go into the nearest section, which
would bring him into the company of the two other actors in this drama.
Thus the first stage of the affair might be surmised without any great
breach of probability. But what the second stage had been, or how the
final one had been arrived at, neither the guard nor the experienced
detective officers could suggest.
A careful examination of the line between Willesden and Rugby resulted
in one discovery which might or might not have a bearing upon the
tragedy. Near Tring, at the very place where the train slowed down,
there was found at the bottom of the embankment a small pocket
Testament, very shabby and worn. It was printed by the Bible Society
of London, and bore an inscription: "From John to Alice. Jan. 13th,
1856," upon the fly-leaf. Underneath was written: "James. July 4th,
1859," and beneath that again: "Edward. Nov. 1st, 1869," all the
entries being in the same handwriting. This was the only clue, if it
could be called a clue, which the police obtained, and the coroner's
verdict of "Murder by a person or persons unknown" was the
unsatisfactory ending of a singular case. Advertisement, rewards, and
inquiries proved equally fruitless, and nothing could be found which
was solid enough to form the basis for a profitable investigation.
It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that no theories were formed
to account for the facts. On the contrary, the Press, both in England
and in America, teemed with suggestions and suppositions, most of which
were obviously absurd. The fact that the watches were of American
make, and some peculiarities in connection with the gold stopping of
his front tooth, appeared to indicate that the deceased was a citizen
of the United States, though his linen, clothes and boots were
undoubtedly of British manufacture. It was surmised, by some, that he
was concealed under the seat, and that, being discovered, he was for
some reason, possibly because he had overheard their guilty secrets,
put to death by his fellow-passengers. When coupled with generalities
as to the ferocity and cunning of anarchical and other secret
societies, this theory sounded as plausible as any.
The fact that he should be without a ticket would be consistent with
the idea of concealment, and it was well known that women played a
prominent part in the Nihilistic propaganda. On the other hand, it was
clear, from the guard's statement, that the man must have been hidden
there BEFORE the others arrived, and how unlikely the coincidence that
conspirators should stray exactly into the very compartment in which a
spy was already concealed! Besides, this explanation ignored the man in
the smoking carriage, and gave no reason at all for his simultaneous
disappearance. The police had little difficulty in showing that such a
theory would not cover the facts, but they were unprepared in the
absence of evidence to advance any alternative explanation.
There was a letter in the Daily Gazette, over the signature of a
well-known criminal investigator, which gave rise to considerable
discussion at the time. He had formed a hypothesis which had at least
ingenuity to recommend it, and I cannot do better than append it in his
own words.
"Whatever may be the truth," said he, "it must depend upon some bizarre
and rare combination of events, so we need have no hesitation in
postulating such events in our explanation. In the absence of data we
must abandon the analytic or scientific method of investigation, and
must approach it in the synthetic fashion. In a word, instead of taking
known events and deducing from them what has occurred, we must build up